Archive for the &;green cars&; Category
LA Auto ShowNotes
December 9, 2009
I attended the LA Auto Show&;s Press Days last week. The show had a focus on environmentally-friendly vehicles, and I got to drive three different &;green&; cars.
Porsche Cayenne &;D&;&;Great to drive a Porsche, as even the SUV has lots of pick-up and style, once I figured out that the ignition key goes to the left of the steering column. Downer: the car probably won&;t come to the USA, as the representative told me that they&;d sell 1000 Cayennes a month with little positive impact from having a diesel. The implication was that even with &;clean diesel&; the pain-in-the-ass factor was too high for their market.
Chevy Equinox fuel cell&;handles like what it is, a mid-size Chevy SUV with the extra weight of fuel cell technology. Felt good to drive, but clearly still an experiment&;only given out to 100 customers who live within short driving distance of a hydrogen filling station, of which there are apparently only two in LA. The car gets about 150 miles on a hydrogen fill-up. Not a commercial vehicle, yet.
Ford Focus BEV (battery electric vehicle)&;Based on a relatively old stripped-down Focus, the BEV was clearly a prototype. It had a big red button that looked like the nuclear war &;football&; between the seats. Its purpose was to completely shut down all systems if it had a techical problem; &;Don&;t push it!&; the engineer on the ride-along shrieked. Yet this car had the most potential of the three I drove; currently it gets 80 miles from its giant lithium-ion battery pack, and Ford is shooting for 100 before a commercial release sometime in 2010. And unlike the fuel-cell cars, alls you have to do is plug it in overnight.
Another interesting trend at the Show: Japanese cars, once famous for their fuel economy, are heavy, expensive and deliver poor gas mileage. A poster child for this problem is the 2010 Acura ZDX&;a 4,462 pound hatchback for $56,045 in the &;advanced&; configuration, it delivers 16 miles to the gallon in the city&;Escalade territory. I also think it&;s ugly, but you can decide.
Tags:Acura-ZDX, Chevy-Equinox-fuel-cell, Ford-Focus-BEV, green cars, LA-Auto-Show Posted in Automobiles, Automotive-industry, green cars | Leave a Comment &;